South Western Railway - Report for Prosecution

[Ollierail]

Hi there,
I was wondering if I could be offered some support on a recent prosecution I recieved.
There are no gate barriers at Thames Ditton station and so I decided to go on and purchase my ticket on trainline from Clapham Junction to Vauxhall for a cheaper fare even though I travelled from Hampton Court.
Upon arrival I was then stopped by a revenues protection officer who took down all my details and I admitted to what I had done.
He said I would receive a letter in the post but upon reading on this forum and other websites I can see that this can be quite a serious case and I could go to court.
I really just want to pay the fine, admit to my wrong doings and then not do it again in order to not be prosecuted further in court however I have done this before and haven't been caught so I am worried that they will take it further - has anyone had something similar and it's gone further.
I'm really stressed out at the moment and don't want there to be any problems over something that I thought wasn't that bad.
If anyone knows any kind of advice where I can limit the damage, potentially emailing them straight away (before receiving the letter of prosecution) admitting that I have done wrong and that I'm sorry etc...? I'm unsure what to do...

Any help is much appreciated!

Many thanks

 

[WesternLancer]

Hi there,
I was wondering if I could be offered some support on a recent prosecution I recieved.
There are no gate barriers at Thames Ditton station and so I decided to go on and purchase my ticket on trainline from Clapham Junction to Vauxhall for a cheaper fare even though I travelled from Hampton Court.
Upon arrival I was then stopped by a revenues protection officer who took down all my details and I admitted to what I had done.
He said I would receive a letter in the post but upon reading on this forum and other websites I can see that this can be quite a serious case and I could go to court.
I really just want to pay the fine, admit to my wrong doings and then not do it again in order to not be prosecuted further in court however I have done this before and haven't been caught so I am worried that they will take it further - has anyone had something similar and it's gone further.
I'm really stressed out at the moment and don't want there to be any problems over something that I thought wasn't that bad.
If anyone knows any kind of advice where I can limit the damage, potentially emailing them straight away (before receiving the letter of prosecution) admitting that I have done wrong and that I'm sorry etc...? I'm unsure what to do...

Any help is much appreciated!

Many thanks

Hi and welcome - you will indeed get good advice here on how to progress things going forward given what has happened. But a few initial points for you to bear in mind.

a) potentially emailing them straight away (before receiving the letter of prosecution)

Advice here is usually / always: 'do not do this'. You need to wait to hear from them, both for admin reasons, but also because you might send them something that risks making things worse, even if you are trying to do the right thing.
having said that it is very unlikely that you will just be sent a prosecution notice requiring you to go to court. You will more likely be sent a letter threatening prosecution but asking for your side of the story. This is your opportunity to ask if they will consider settling the matter out of court, which would be instead of a prosecution. Securing an out of court settlement needs to be your objective.

b) I have done this before and haven't been caught

They will almost certainly investigate your ticket purchasing records if you buy these short fares on line and will work this out, it is easy for them to do from whoever you buy tickets from. If they agree to a settlement they will probably want payment for full fares for all such trips they detect from your purchasing records

c) I really just want to pay the fine, admit to my wrong doings and then not do it again

If you mean you would prefer to pay a £100 Penalty Fare (you may have seen posters about these at the station) this is not an option now. Penalty Fares are not designed for persistent deliberate fare evasion, which you will appreciate is what you have been doing. And in any case you were not issued with a Penalty Fare and they do not issue them after the event.

So all you can do now is:

- wait until you hear from them, then head back for advice on how to best respond to that
- ensure you always have a valid ticket form this point onwards (including no wrong tickets by genuine mistake as they might think those are other deliberate evasions - if you are uncertain of your ticket validity ask at a station ticket office)
- if you can do something like buy a season ticket to reduce your fares do so now - as that can then be used by you to show you have taken steps to legitimise your travel from now on, and 'learned your lesson'
- have a look at other cases on the forum involving SWR to get a feel for how they play out
- save up money to pay any out of court settlement they might offer as these usually need to be paid in full and immediately, in order to prevent prosecution
- have a read of all the info here
https://www.southwesternrailway.com/travelling-with-us/ticket-checks-and-revenue-protection

In the mean time try not to get too stressed out.

Do head back with any questions you might have so you can understand clearly what will now happen and how to get the best (or least worst) outcome.

 

[Ollierail]

Hi There, @WesternLancer
I really appreciate your advice thank you.
I was wondering if you have an idea of how many times you would have had to have done this for them to really slam the hammer down on you.
I.e., if 40% of your trips are short fare evasion but then you have a lot that are legitimate then would that help your cause or not?
Is it likely that if I admit to my wrong doings when emailing "my side of the story" and admit that I've learnt and will never do it again that they will settle with a fee. I just really dont want a criminal record because I'm only a 20 year old student and don't want it to impact my future as the only reason I'm travelling to London is for work experience so that I can have a good CV for future employment.

Thank you for the help and the links.

 

[AlterEgo]

I.e., if 40% of your trips are short fare evasion but then you have a lot that are legitimate then would that help your cause or not?

....no. That is a lot of fare evasion. If you only shoplifted 60% of the time you visited a store that...would not make you look good.

Is it likely that if I admit to my wrong doings when emailing "my side of the story" and admit that I've learnt and will never do it again that they will settle with a fee.

SWR normally settle, but if they discover all the offending through an audit of your ticket purchase accounts then this may be expensive for you.

 

[Haywain]

Hi There, @WesternLancer
I really appreciate your advice thank you.
I was wondering if you have an idea of how many times you would have had to have done this for them to really slam the hammer down on you.
I.e., if 40% of your trips are short fare evasion but then you have a lot that are legitimate then would that help your cause or not?
Is it likely that if I admit to my wrong doings when emailing "my side of the story" and admit that I've learnt and will never do it again that they will settle with a fee. I just really dont want a criminal record because I'm only a 20 year old student and don't want it to impact my future as the only reason I'm travelling to London is for work experience so that I can have a good CV for future employment.

Thank you for the help and the links.

I get the impression that you will have done this on quite a number of occasions, and these will come to light when SWR obtain your purchasing history from Trainline. In such circumstances we have often seen that SWR invite the perpetrator in for an interview. The purpose of this is, it seems, to establish the number of occasions that a fare has been avoided and that the perpetrator regrets their actions, subsequent to which a settlement figure has been agreed. The interview can also be used to gather evidence that can be used in court, but this is not an outcome we have actually seen in the forum as far as I can remember. The primary objective of the train company is to recover the lost revenue and their costs in doing so, and to prevent further occurences, so settling out of court is in their interests as well as yours.

 

[Ollierail]

Hi @Haywain
I really appreciate your insight. If a settlement fee is established do you have any idea how they come about this number or does it vary too much from case to case to the point that the sum would not be possible to predict?

Thanks

 

[Haywain]

Hi @Haywain
I really appreciate your insight. If a settlement fee is established do you have any idea how they come about this number or does it vary too much from case to case to the point that the sum would not be possible to predict?

Thanks

They will calculate the fare due for the journeys where you haven't paid (think full single fare for each journey) and add their costs on top. The costs are likely to be in the region of £100 to £250.

 

[John R]

In terms of likely outcome, assuming all the suspect journeys are identified, it's likely the Anytime Single fare from Thames Ditton will be used, so £9.00 for each single journey. Then add an administration cost of around £150.

 

[Haywain]

it's likely the Anytime Single fare from Thames Ditton will be used, so £9.00 for each single journey.

Or £6.10, depending on which fare is chosen.

 

[WesternLancer]

Hi There, @WesternLancer
I really appreciate your advice thank you.
I was wondering if you have an idea of how many times you would have had to have done this for them to really slam the hammer down on you.
I.e., if 40% of your trips are short fare evasion but then you have a lot that are legitimate then would that help your cause or not?
Is it likely that if I admit to my wrong doings when emailing "my side of the story" and admit that I've learnt and will never do it again that they will settle with a fee. I just really dont want a criminal record because I'm only a 20 year old student and don't want it to impact my future as the only reason I'm travelling to London is for work experience so that I can have a good CV for future employment.

Thank you for the help and the links.

I don't really know the answer to this but I see others have given views. But you have to see the wider context which is that the government have to subsidise the railway system by substantial amounts, and the govt want that subsidy to reduce - so place significant pressure on railway companies to maximise income, which means they need all passengers to pay their fares.

I note that you say you are a student - so one other thing you could do is see if your Student Union or college has an advice service that can help you. They may have advisors or they may also have arrangements with local solicitors who would give free advice to you, if that was needed. You could find out about this now in case you needed their help.

You can also presumably buy a Railcard to help reduce some of your ticket costs, if you do not have one already. If that is a better option than a season ticket, again that is something you can do to show you have taken steps to legitimately reduce your travel costs.

You cans also (no need to state it here) start looking at your travel history to make your own list of how many times you have done this so you can get an idea of the cost of the fares you have avoided.

I think you have a good likelihood of them settling it out of court and thus you avoiding prosecution.

 

[Ollierail]

I really appreciate all the information and support on this thread. It's really helped me with understanding the consequences of my actions.
I was wondering that if I am asked to go in for the interview should I get a solicitor for the interview or is that not needed?

Thanks

 

[30907]

I was wondering that if I am asked to go in for the interview should I get a solicitor for the interview or is that not needed?

IMO it would be good to take a wise friend with you, but a solicitor would be an expensive waste of money, unless SW come up with a significantly longer list of journeys than you know is right.

 

[WesternLancer]

IMO it would be good to take a wise friend with you, but a solicitor would be an expensive waste of money, unless SW come up with a significantly longer list of journeys than you know is right.

Yes, good point. And this is why the OP should make a detailed private list of the occasions when they think they have not paid the correct fare, so they can be prepared for such a situation.

But it's important not to get ahead of things yet, although we do see cases of people being invited to interviews, that won't happen all the time because it is a time consuming process and there are too many fare evaders to interview I would think! If the OP engages with the railway company with advice from here it is quite possible that they will not interview. But I suspect they will want to be convinced that in any correspondence the OP is being honest in terms of responses ot questions they ask.

 

[MotCO]

Are all your journeys Thames Ditton to Vauxhall, or do you sometimes make shorter journeys? If the latter, you may want to start looking for confirmation that you made the shorter journeys, e.g. notes of meetings, diary entries, or possibly your Google Maps Timeline etc. so that you can present this evidence to SWR in due course.

 

[Sultan]

Did you do the same on any return journey? If your journeys are regular, then they may question how you managed to get back from Vauxhall to Hampton Court.

 

[emilywalther]

Hi Ollie, can I ask if you have heard anything since?

 

[Ollierail]

Hi Ollie, can I ask if you have heard anything since? I find myself in a similar situation now (being caught for ‘short fares’ and they are looking through my Trainline history) and I am extremely worried. Any news or advice?

Hi Emily,
I still haven't heard anything, I've had no letter, no email, no text... very bizarre.

 

[Haywain]

Hi Ollie, can I ask if you have heard anything since? I find myself in a similar situation now (being caught for ‘short fares’ and they are looking through my Trainline history) and I am extremely worried. Any news or advice?

Please start your own thread and we can give you assistance. No two cases are the same no matter how similar they may appear to be.

Hi Emily,
I still haven't heard anything, I've had no letter, no email, no text... very bizarre.

It can take up to 6 months, so you have to be patient.

 

[Puffing Devil]

Hi Ollie, can I ask if you have heard anything since? I find myself in a similar situation now (being caught for ‘short fares’ and they are looking through my Trainline history) and I am extremely worried. Any news or advice?

Emily - please start your own thread with the details of your case. You'll get personal advice tailored to your own, specific, situation.

Also - if your username is your full and proper name, you should change it - Ollierail has the right idea